QUEST HERE! I HAVE A QUEST FOR YOU! MAKE SURE YOU GET MY QUEST HERE BECAUSE I HAVE A QUEST!are you done yet? you don't look done. maybe you need to kill some more bears.YOU'RE DONE! THAT'S SO GREAT! I AM VERY HAPPY THAT YOU ARE DONE AND I AM GOING TO GIVE YOU A REWARD IF YOU COME TALK TO ME!

Let's ditch that weirdo and instead get into the world, yea! Let's go talk to this guy, see what's up with him. It is nice weather indeed. That's cool. It's like a world. In the real world no one has quest markers, you have to talk to them to get a job. How about this guy? Kids died in the war. That's sad. I wonder if I can visit his kids' graves and drop off flowers for him or something? No? I guess I am a complete stranger. That's realistic that he has nothing for me. Maybe this guy. How's it going? Need to me to shoot any bears? Yes? Great, I'll get right on that.

Yep, these bears are so dead and this world is so awesome. I mean, none of those weirdos with the shouting and then whispering and then shouting some more. Pretty great. I kill those bears, sir. Thanks for the firewood, I mean family heirloom.

Hi! I'm an adventurer in search of adventure. Do you have any for me? No? Okay. Hello over there. You don't talk, got it. You, fellow, how are you today? Winter is coming? Yes sir, it is. Hello ma'am, do you need any help with anything? Going to the well? I could carry some buckets for you? No, you have it covered? No one fell in?

*unsheathes sword*

LISTEN TO ME: I am not here to socialize with a bunch of scripted idiots. I am here to get excuses to kill stuff. Unless you are going to give me something in exchange for killing something else, I do not want to talk to you. I'd prefer to not even look in your direction. The next person who looks at me and doesn't have a quest to kill stuff or carry stuff past people who I get to kill will die.

QUEST HERE! I HAVE A QUEST FOR YOU! MAKE SURE YOU GET MY QUEST HERE BECAUSE I HAVE A QUEST!

5
comments:

Pretty much. Choices are already arbitrarily limited by being in a video game -- best to not make the player try to guess how the hell to get a quest.

I mean, most players already follow the rule of "If it's not a named NPC, we don't care -- and in some cases, we still don't care." Except the fact you see a character's name floating over them is already similar to an exclamation point! Can you imagine walking up to a person in real life and magically knowing their name? How freaked out would they be?

One solution to the problem of not knowing who is a quest-giver (if there's no bright yellow exclamation mark over their heads) would be to have other NPCs direct you to them. If each NPC you engaged could give you the nod to some NPC quest-giver whose quests you hadn't yet completed, your frustrating conversations could go like this:

"Yeah, my poor son died in the war. But enough of my problems. Remy "Two Times" is looking for somebody to deliver a message to Marshal Dughan, ten yards away from him. Maybe you can help him?"

Okay, put like that it might seem a little facetious, but the idea is that even if an NPC has no problems of her own that you can help with, she knows her neighbours, and knows who a hardy adventurer could help. So NPCs can act as signposts to NPC quest-givers, without the immersion-breaking "?".

"Okay, put like that it might seem a little facetious, but the idea is that even if an NPC has no problems of her own that you can help with, she knows her neighbours, and knows who a hardy adventurer could help. So NPCs can act as signposts to NPC quest-givers, without the immersion-breaking "?"."

Sure. Except talking to twenty different villagers and having them ALL point you to X for a quest would also seem very odd :)